Betalogue

After waiting a couple of days, the only issue I saw on Mac troubleshooting about the recently released Mac OS X 10.3.3 update was that it was causing some USB flash card readers to fail.

So just to be sure, I first installed the update on my PowerBook G4 and tested my USB card reader on that machine, which I don’t use very frequently to transfer pictures from my flash cards to the computer’s hard drive. Things went fine, and the flash card reader was still working, so I went ahead and installed the update on the dual 1.25 GHz G4 as well.

I took the usual precautions. I elected to install the Combined Update (which works with 10.3, 10.3.1, and 10.3.2) rather than the regular update (which only works with 10.3.2). Since the combined updater weighs 67 MB (not 77 MB as the Apple web site claims), and the regular updater weighs 57 MB, the decision was not really very hard to make. When you’ve already downloaded 57 MB, what’s another 10? Over the years, there have been enough reports that the combined updaters produce better results than the regular updaters, so I’ve made a habit of always using the former.

I also repaired permissions first, and then replaced the directory with a new one using DiskWarrior before actually installing the update. I also repaired the permissions again right after installing the combined update. The only permission problem it found was the following:

Repairing permissions for “Core”
Determining correct file permissions.
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util. New permissions are 33261
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

Since then, I’ve been using my computer for all the regular tasks that I do on a daily basis, and it has been humming along just fine. One added bonus is that the update appears to have fixed the problem with the Backup application launching automatically two copies of itself in the background at the time of a scheduled backup — although obviously I will only be able to confirm this improvement beyond doubt if things stay trouble-free for several days in a row.

On the negative side, the Mac OS X 10.3.3 does not fix the problems with my AirPort connection on the PowerBook — not anymore than the recent AirPort Software 3.3.1 update did. This problem is really becoming really frustrating and it’s taking Apple an awfully long time to acknowledge and fix it. Grrr…

This entry was posted by Pierre Igot on Sunday, March 21st, 2004 at 5:37 am and is filed under Macintosh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.